Not enough boil off - question

I just bottled a 2.5 gallon brew and ended up with a good amount of beer left over. Probably 40-50 oz. I'm assuming I did not boil off enough.

Will this ruin my beer?

No,but it'll have a lower OG than expected. It'll be thinned down a bit.

nope. as long as you had fermentation you got beer. if your worried about your ABV it will be slightly less than expected if you were over your volumes. aka you diluted it. But I wouldn't worry about it you just wound up with a couple more beers than you were expecting. Might be slightly less carbonated if you primed using 2.5 gallons and had more than that but again I think the difference will be negligible.

To fix this issue long term, you need to figure out the boil off rate of your boil kettle, and figure that amount into the overall water volume calculations. Boil off is a constant factor of time and surface area, so boil like a gallon of water in your pot for 15 minutes at the same "vigor" as you normally would, measure the amount of water you lose, then mutliply that by four, and you have your per hour boiloff rate.

The beer will be fine, just a little weaker than it would have been as the guys above expressed. Another helpful method until you really nail down your boil off rates etc, is to just always keep your boil volume less or equal to your batch volume, then just top off to achieve your final goal batch size. Goes with the old addage "you can always add more, but can't take it back out" or whatever it was...

I just hope it doesn't taste too watery.

I think I started with 3.5 gallons. I will try to calculate my boil off rate tonight. Thanks for the tips.

I get about 1/2 gallon boil off in a 1 hour partial boil of 3.5 gallons in a 5 gallon SS kettle. I have my electric stove's burner set at 8.5 to 8.8 on the knob.